Why Should You Link Your Google Ads Console to Google Search Console?

Um, because you’ll get more data. DUH!

By connecting Google Search Console (GSC) with Google Ads you get a snapshot glance of paid vs. organic keywords. You will get data at the Search Query and Keyword levels so you can see the incremental value of paid vs. organic terms.

This should be really great news for paid advertisers and organic search campaign leaders alike. Google’s spin is that you can see new, organic opportunities and new, paid search opportunities. Equally, you can see – in a really simple report – where you are performing well organically and make adjustments to drop paid search bids or pause keywords altogether if you’re on a limited budget. This is especially great news whether you’re doing both yourself or if you’re working in an agency that provides both PPC and SEO to the same client.

How To Create a Google Search Console Linked Account in Google Ads

• Tools Needed: Google Search Console, Google Ads Console
• Time Required: 10 minutes
• Estimated Cost: $0

Similar to linking Google Ads to Analytics, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner, and select Linked Accounts. You’ll see an option for Search Console. Follow these steps:

1. 1. Access ‘Linked accounts.’ Click on the Tools button on the top navigation of your Google Ads dashboard. Clicking this will produce a dropdown of 20 different options. Click the link titled  “Linked Accounts” under the Settings section.
   2. Select ‘Search Console’ from your list of options. Since first releasing this feature in 2013, Google has added several other options under the “Linked Accounts” heading. Search Console is one of the last options in the list, located in the 9th position of available options – fifth row, right-hand side. Click the link for ‘DETAILS’.
      
   3. Click the link titled “LINK” to launch Search Console. Pretty self-explanatory, we think.
      
   4. Enter your website address, and click “CONTINUE”. Again, we also find this step to be pretty self-explanatory. One note of caution: make sure your domain names in each account are a match. For instance, if you use https:// and www in front of your domain name in Ads, make sure you select the Search Console account with the same naming convention. You are using https, right? Of course you are.
      
   5. Voila! Your Search Console account is now linked to your Ads account. Depending on whether or not this is successful for you, you might receive one of the following results from your attempt at linking these accounts.
      
      Here is what you should see if your Search Console account was successfully linked to Google Ads.

If you have already verified ownership of your site in Google Search Console – congratulations, you’re all set!

If you haven’t claimed your site, simply click the blue link for “Claim it at Search Console.” This will direct you to Google Search Console and provide the recommended methods for verifying your site.

Need more help? Check the Google Help article here or contact a friendly DOM digital advertising specialist (link below).

The Paid & Organic Report: The Mother Lode of Google Performance Data

The Paid & Organic Report can be found under the Predefined reports tab (formerly known as the Dimensions tab). By the way, if you’re not familiar with this section of Google Ads, take some time and play around. There are so many insightful reports here.

To get to the Paid & Organic report, navigate to Basic > Paid & Organic.

Check out the screenshots below. Although the search terms and other personal information has been blurred out, below is a synopsis of what you’ll see in the paid and organic report:

“This table shows how your paid and organic results performed for every search that triggered an ad or organic listing.”

The click details and other data updates once a day and we do not believe that you can see historical data, rather it starts accruing once you link the accounts. However, our Ads reps were not certain about this at the original time of publication. Over the last five years, we have confirmed that as such :).

Key Takeaways on Connecting Google Ads to Search Console

• Linking Google Search Console with Google Ads provides valuable organic search data that can improve paid search campaign performance.
• This integration allows you to identify keywords performing well organically and adjust your paid search bids accordingly for better budget management.
• By seeing both paid and organic data side-by-side, advertisers can make more informed budget allocation and keyword bidding decisions.
• The combined data helps you understand the incremental value of running paid ads alongside organic listings for the same search queries.
• This integrated reporting reveals instances where paid ads are essential to support weak organic rankings, and where organic visibility is strong enough to recommend lowering ad spend.

Conclusion

Google keeps giving us more and more reporting features from within the Google Ads interface. You can see competitive data, analytic data, funnel data, data…..data…..data! Now there’s even more! It’s almost like Google wants you to be successful.

Hell yeah, they do! We love that they’re tying all their properties together. Instead of being an outlet mall, Google Ads has evolved into being a one-stop-shop.

If you found this article helpful, you might want to check out one of these other posts on getting the most out of Google Search Console for your SEO efforts.

• How To Make the Google Knowledge Panel Work For You
• Set Your Course In Google Search Console With International Targeting
• What are Core Web Vitals and What Should I Do About Them?

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

This article was updated to add additional information on April 28th, 2025.

The post How To Link Google Ads To Google Search Console (Updated 2025) appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Looking for information regarding subdomain tracking for monitoring users across your entire platform in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?

Updated: 4/18/2024

“GA4 is set-up to handle subdomains automatically if the same GA4 measurement ID is shared across all subdomains of the same root domain.“

Dana Schumacher, Senior Digital Analyst at DOM

How much longer are you going to rely on Universal Google Analytics? You are at risk of losing any of your historical performance data in 2023 if you don’t set up and properly configure Google Analytics 4. Learn how the two platforms compare to each other in this blog post – Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics.

Subdomains are a standard way to segment content on a website. Subdomains can be created at any time with no limit and with out a registrar. A common reason to create subdomains would be to differentiate a sector of your business such as “info.yoursite.com” or “tools.yoursite.com.”

From a developer’s perspective, subdomains are integral to utilizing multiple CMS platforms.  For this reason, they have become common across the web.

While subdomains have little benefit from an SEO viewpoint, many websites have plenty of justifications to leverage them.

How To Set Up Subdomain Tracking In Google Analytics

Configuring Google Analytics subdomain tracking can be somewhat aggravating and extremely cumbersome. If you are still using Universal Analytics and also have the need to setup tracking for subdomains – we strongly suggest setting up GA4 so you can avoid many of the remaining steps.

Despite being the market leader in web analytics, Google has been somewhat ambiguous on how to properly configure Google Analytics to track traffic between subdomains and root domains in an aggregate report (aka cross-subdomain tracking).

If this is your first time attempting to achieve correct cross-subdomain tracking, you’re in luck because this guide has made it simple for you.

Cross-Subdomain vs. Cross-Domain — What’s the Difference?

Understanding how cross-domain and cross-subdomain tracking differ from each other is crucial. The methods for implementation across each are entirely different.

What’s The Difference Between A Root Domain And A Subdomain

To be clear, here is the difference between a (root) domain and a subdomain:

• directom.com (root domain): Domains consist of various letter / number combinations followed by their domain extension (.com, .org, .gov, .edu, etc.)
• cctld.directom.com (subdomain): Similar to root domains, except with a series of letters / numbers at the beginning, separated by a period (.)

Use cross-domain tracking when you want a single report that displays user behavior across two domains as if they were on a single domain. Without cross-domain tracking, GA will record a new session every time a user navigates between two or more domain properties.

How To Set Up Cross Domain Tracking In GA4

Trying to set up GA4 cross domain tracking?
We’ve got you covered in this blog post:
4 Steps To Set Up GA4 Cross Domain Tracking

You would need to implement cross-domain tracking if, for example, you wanted to track users across the following:

• https://example.com
• https://examplesite.com
• https://www.othersite.com

Cross-subdomain tracking tracks users and sessions across different subsections of a single domain. We get requests to implement this type of tracking much more frequently than cross-domain tracking.

Some of the most common uses for subdomains include:

• Foreign language versions of a website
  • de.example.com (<— German version)
• Third-party marketing solutions/software (such as Marketo, Salesforce, Unbounce)
  • marketo.example.com
• Blog hosting (typically when blog functionality is cost-prohibitive with current CMS)
  • blog.example.com
• E-commerce checkout pages (typically third-party shopping cart solutions)
  • checkout.example.com

Please note — in the above examples, the root domain never changed. If you’re trying to track sessions across two root domains, we recommend following a different process.

For website owners with multiple subdomains, you need to implement cross-subdomain tracking if you want to track users across the following:

• www.cctld.directom.com
• www.es.directom.com
• www.directom.com

Technical Side Note

Domain owners can create and manage as many subdomains as they want. Proper DNS configuration of subdomains is vital for tracking users across them.

If you make your way through this guide and are still not seeing proper site traffic across subdomains, it might be a good idea to get a second set of eyes to help identify the issue.

Before you continue, we cannot stress enough how getting the following items properly configured will give you a higher chance of success:

1. Root domain & subdomain DNS settings
2. GA account structure
3. Implementation of the same GA code across all subdomains and the primary root domain

Assuming all of the above is good to go, you are ready to configure cross-subdomain analytics correctly.

“If you’re dealing with a website with multiple subdomains, in most cases, you’ll want to configure the same Google Analytics 4 measurement ID/data stream across all subdomains.“

Dana Schumacher, Senior Digital Analyst at DOM

Why Track Cross-Subdomain Traffic in Google Analytics as a Single Session?

By default, Google Analytics is not set up with cross-subdomain tracking. As a result, website owners will not have an accurate picture of how a user moved across subdomains and the root domain.

Here’s what happens normally: Every time a user comes to a website, GA tracking notes that visit as a session and begins tracking how that person interacts with a site.

Without cross-subdomain tracking, GA will count a new session every time a user goes from a subdomain to a domain (and vice versa). This means that total sessions are being miscalculated and referral data gets lost.

Translation — there’s no way to tell where a user came from and sessions become inflated.

Let’s say that an organic search user lands on a company’s blog from Google and the blog post lives on blog.example.com. After reading the post, the user wants to learn more about the company and fills out a contact form that lives on the root domain. Without proper subdomain tracking in GA, the conversion data will credit the subdomain as the referral source when really the user first came to the site from organic search.

Without correct referral source attribution, websites can’t tell which channels are the most effective for their goals.

Most sites want to track user navigation between subdomains that share a root domain and the corresponding root domain as a single session. After tracking is set up, traffic sources, user actions and behavior completed on any subdomain can be attributed to the same user session.

For example, you might have a promotional landing page set up at info.example.com that directs users to purchase products at buy.example.com. With cross-subdomain tracking properly implemented, GA will count users landing on one subdomain and converting on another subdomain as a single session.

Heads Up, You Have Been (Un)Warned

Pulling up Google’s developer documentation for cross-domain tracking will prominently display a fun warning at the very top:

If the owner of the world’s most ubiquitous analytics platform suggests that something is complex, they’re probably right.

Our advice — do not let Google psyche you out.

It is true that the code behind this configuration is complex.

However, we’ve pulled off quite a few Google Analytics implementations. We made this subdomain tracking resource easy to understand.

So, have no fear – this guide will walk you through a step-by-step process to follow that will help assure success.

Getting Started — The Typical Google Analytics Account Structure

The account structure hierarchy in Google Analytics is:

Analytics Account > Properties & Apps > Views

The image below represents how many analytics accounts are set up. This implementation structure consists of the following levels:

Note that in the implementation above, all the items in the “Properties & Apps” row have unique tracking IDs. Having an implementation set up in this manner is pretty typical.

On the positive side, this setup makes accessing traffic and behavior across a single subdomain within an account a breeze.

Since every property has a unique tracking ID, the data associated with each domain or subdomain automatically populates as its default view and can be accessed without any further configuration.

On the other hand, this configuration makes it practically impossible to track cross-subdomain traffic.

How to Setup Subdomain Tracking In Google Analytics 4

• Tools needed: Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Tag Assistant
• Time required: 20 min
• Estimated cost: $0

Figure out how Google Analytics tracking is implemented on your site. This guide will touch on how to set up cross-subdomain tracking for both hard coded Universal Analytics and Google Tag Manager configurations.

Before jumping into implementation, please note that this process will only work if your site is using the Universal Analytics version. For older websites with “Classic Analytics,” it is highly recommended to upgrade to the latest version.

In Google Analytics 4, users can be tracked cross-subdomains without the need for additional code. It should generally be handled using the same measurement ID and leveraging reporting, comparisons, and segments to address different subdomain data views.

If you are unsure which method you have implemented on your site, we suggest downloading the Tag Assistant (by Google) Chrome plugin or consulting your developer.

Part 1 – Set the cookieDomain

A cookie is a piece of code on a website that stores information about a session on a user’s computer.

To attribute the name of the domain in the information contained in a cookie, you will need to set the cookieDomain.

If Universal GA is hard coded on your site:

Congrats! The cookieDomain is set to auto by default, and you can skip right to part 2.

If Universal GA code fires through Google Tag Manager (GTM):

1. Navigate to and select the container you wish to edit.

1. Click “Tags” on the left-hand menu.

1. Click on your Google Analytics Tag (In this example, our tag was named “Universal Analytics.” If you are unsure which of your tags is being used to send data to Google Analytics, look for the label “Google Analytics – Universal Analytics” in the “Type” column of the tags table.

1. Click to edit the tag then proceed to “More Settings” > “Fields to Set.”
2. Click “+ ADD FIELD.”
3. Set the Field Name to “cookieDomain” and the Value to “auto.”

Part 2 – Update the Referral Exclusion List In GA4

This part is the same for both GTM and hard coded Universal Analytics implementations.

Note: In Universal Analytics, setting referral exclusions does not remove that data entirely. Instead, it just gets removed from the referrals are and gets populated as direct traffic.

In addition to that, there is a possibility that this step is already set up correctly in your account, but it is necessary for analytics to display accurate numbers. It is worth the two minutes it will take to double check. 

1) Log in to Google Analytics and select any view from the account that you wish to implement cross-subdomain tracking.

2) Access the admin panel by clicking the gear icon in the bottom left of the screen.

3) Under the property column, navigate to Tracking Info > Referral Exclusion List.

4) Your root domain may already be in this table. If it is not, click the “+ ADD REFERRAL EXCLUSION” button and submit your root domain (yoursite.com).

In Google Analytics 4, referral exclusions can be easily set with the tag settings area of the data stream settings in GA4. Once you’ve configured those, GA4 identifies those unwanted referrals by leveraging the parameter “ignore_referrer.”

To review and make changes to your list of unwanted referrals in GA4, navigate to Data streams > Configure TA settings > Show all > List unwanted referrals.

Pro-Tip: Seeing Hostnames in Google Analytics 4

In Google Analytics, reporting will strip the hostname when examining exact URLs. If you’ve gone to the trouble of setting up cross-subdomain tracking, seeing whether someone landed on a subdomain or primary domain is essential context when analyzing performance data.

To see this information, navigate to a report where the primary dimension is a pageview (such as Site Content > All Pages/Landing Pages). Select the secondary dimension dropdown > Behavior > Hostname.

Keep in mind that when adding together.

It’s worth noting here that when you implement GA4, the hostname dimension is populated automatically. This is just one of the many ways GA4 is a less manual and easier to set up than it’s predecessor.

While these considerations are high-level best practice when configuring GA4 for multiple subdomains, we recommend that you also refer to Google’s documentation for more details on this subject.

Dana Schumacher, Senior Digital Analyst at DOM

Conclusion

Implementing cross-subdomain tracking has a reputation for being quite difficult, but it doesn’t have to be that way.  If you followed the steps in the guide above, you should have your implementation correctly set up in no time.

Just remember the two main parts:

1. 1. Set the cookieDomain.
   2. Update the referral exclusion list.

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Premier Google Partner before you reach out.

The post How to Track Users Across Subdomains In Google Analytics 4 (GA4) – November 2024 appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

The earth is no longer round… but that doesn’t mean your international SEO (or overseas SEO) strategies should be linear.

After marinating for twenty-odd years in a technological chrysalis, the world as we perceive it has emerged with four corners and a screen and fits comfortably in most pockets/purses.

With the swipe of a finger, a person can now score a date, watch a movie, and impulse-buy whatever products their heart desires.

With the world quite literally at our fingertips, we can search for, find, and purchase exactly what we’re looking for, no matter where in the world it is located. Purchasing power lays completely in the hands of the consumer… and the search results. To assist you in winning over the hearts of both, we have rounded up some pretty incredible international search engine marketing consultants to guide you in your quest for making your international market expansion search engine (and user) friendly.

29 Top SEO Consultants Share Fundamental Strategies To Help Improve Your Website Rankings Around The Globe!

International SEO Tip #1: Do Your Homework!

Katrina Reger, Digital Marketing Strategist, Blue Compass Interactive

Plan ahead!! From choosing your URL structure (ccTLD, gTLD, subdomains, subdirectories – there are lots of decisions to be made on URL structure alone,) to hreflang tags which help with local search on a global scale, and canonical tags to help with duplicate content; there are countless factors worthy of your consideration. When scaling your site internationally the worst thing you can do is expand blind. Google will rank your site higher if you do the legwork upfront rather than attempting to fix errors after Google has come “crawling.”

Sam Binks, Digital Marketing Manager, Cool Gifts for Dads

Time differences are important – don’t set up meetings when it’s too early/late for the client. Get some training for your team in how to respect cultures and customs. For instance, if international clients are coming to your office, is it appropriate to eat certain foods at certain times of the year? Show you’re invested in making them happy and you have some idea about where they’re from.

Damon Burton, President, SEO National

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to engaging a variety of international demographics. Businesses should start by writing unique value propositions, blogs, and press specifically to the target country or location. It is crucial that whatever info is generated is specific to the target dialect. Something interesting in one country may not be as equally interesting in another. There may also be different uses of jargon. Sounding natural in your engagement is key.

Stephanie Mahnken, Sr. Digital Marketing Specialist, Direct Online Marketing

It’s very important to really dive in and learn how your customers in foreign markets are using and/or looking for your product or services. To do this effectively, you need to dedicate hours of time to keyword research and competitive analysis. We also recommend having your website translated into other relevant languages to target a specific country, along with country and language meta tags.

Marcus Miller, Owner, and Head of Search Marketing, Bowler Hat

Success with international SEO is not easy. There is much to consider before we even think about the SEO elements. We must consider the regionalization of content, the content is provided in a location’s primary language, currencies, locations that need content in multiple languages and local time zones (for starters). If your business is in the UK and you are selling into the US you could be going home just as the US traffic starts so you will need to consider how you handle customer service from an international perspective. And of course, international shipping can impact your ability to be competitive and various taxes all come into effect.

Ultimately the best tip is to be sure that this is something you want to do and that the returns will be worthy of the effort. With international SEO this is no easy win and a careful hand is needed from a human and technical perspective. Do it right and you can open up a much larger marketplace.

Dana Schumacher, Digital Analyst at Direct Online Marketing

It is incredibly important to understand the linguistics and language dialect of your audience. Many cities/regions have their own different characteristics and dialects and you want to make sure that’s top of mind when creating and optimizing content for international SEO. With that being said, it’s always a good idea to get input from someone who is familiar with the language and dialects. It plays a major role in making sure your content marketing and SEO work is relevant to your audience.

International SEO Takeaway: CYA: Cover Your Ass(ets). Research the people, the culture, see if there’s a demand for what you’re supplying, before diving headfirst into international waters. Overlooking the fine details could cost you dearly.

International SEO Tip #2: To ccTLD Or Not To ccTLD?

Aleyda Solis, International SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti

Make sure the ccTLD, hreflang, and flag choice are cohesive. If someone connects to a site from Spain, but the flag on the site is Mexican, that user will feel like the site is not relevant to them, and they will likely leave…If your site has a Spanish version “.es”, and want to target the British, they enable an English version in their .es ccLTD. But because this site is already geo-located to Spain, it will most likely never rank in the UK or another country.

It’s very important that you think about what other countries you want to target, how you are going to expand in the future, and if it makes sense to start with a ccTLD in the beginning. You will likely need the ccTLD’s in these countries, or you can enable a generic domain where you can play country subdirectories, that way your site will be scalable, and won’t suffer from issues so that you are able to profit from what you have built.

Jonathan Bentz, Sr. Digital Marketing Strategist, Direct Online Marketing

Help Google understand your ccTLD belongs to your main .com by verifying both sites with the same Google Search Console account. When I provided internet marketing services and SEO for a company with 4 different ccTLDs in addition to their main .com, I registered every single domain in webmaster tools under one account.

When I did that and set country-specific locations for each domain, the international domains started ranking for the same short tail, high search volume keywords that the main site ranked for – with no additional link building required.

By going through and properly verifying each site in one Search Console account, then setting unique country locations for each domain, Google will quickly learn to identify your ccTLD’s for their appropriate location… and trust them just as much as your main site.

International SEO Tip:

Want to set this up for your international domains? Check out this guide for setting up international targeting in Google Search Console.

Steffen Ploeger, SEO specialist, 9thco

It’s not good practice to have duplicate websites on different country code top-level domains (ccTLD). Geo-targeting will be outweighed by the domain authority of the .com and as a result, the .com will outrank other ccTLDs even in their geographic target country. Instead of using duplicate websites on different ccTLDs you should use subfolders to indicate country or language. Don’t use proxy localized content. Google and Bing have clearly said to keep one language in one URL. Proxied content, content served by a cookie and side-by-side translations all make it very hard for search engines to index a page in one language. 1 URL = 1Language

International SEO Takeaway: There’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. ccTLD definitely helps with geo-targeting and SERP rankings, but if you have multiple countries contributing to profitability, having a ccTLD in each can confuse search engines and ‘cannibalize’ results (eek!). Strategize what country you’ll benefit most from, ccTLD that bad boy, and subdomain the rest.

Overseas SEO Tip #3: Talk The Talk With Hreflang

Brett Bastello, SEO manager, Inseev Interactive

If you’re headed into international SEO is to make sure you’re properly using the hreflang= tag.

What this tag does is serves a version of your web page in their local language, based on the visitor’s IP address.

This tag can be placed in either the sitemap, within the on-page markup, or in the HTTP header, but it’s important to only choose one. By having this markup listed in multiple locations you leave yourself open to inconsistencies and/or input errors, which will confuse the crawlers.

As your website expands into additional/moves out of certain countries, it is much easier and faster to update one set of hreflang inputs, as opposed to three, especially when there is a team of multiple people spearheading these on-site changes.

Andrew Akesson, Head of Digital, Venn Digital

Another aspect we often see that is wrong is when a company wants to expand into foreign language websites. They do this without giving the user any thought sometimes, so we may get a job/recruitment website that has translated all of their landing pages, but because all of their staff/recruiters are English, all the job descriptions on that page are English.

So for example, the hreflang sitemap states that the page is targeting German users in Germany (de-de), then Google will look to serve that page to German users in Germany. However, when those German users get to the page, they see that all the job descriptions are in English, which is a language they don’t speak and they bounce back to Google. This sends the wrong signals to Google and they demote the page in the rankings. So the recruiter has not only annoyed the user through bad UX, but they have also annoyed Google because the user is having to try a different result from the SERP.

There are a couple of things that should be done. The first is to ensure that the language on the page is the same as that of the hreflang. If your hreflang is de-de, then your page needs to be in German as this is the target language/users you are specifically targeting. Having half the page in one language and the other half in another language means the target user can only understand half the page, meaning they will be less likely to connect with your brand.

Another option to prove how your users are behaving is to use heat mapping software on-site. Any good heat mapping service will give you some information on what country your user is accessing your site from. In this instance, if your main messaging on page (the first thing they are like to see) is in English and the target users are from Germany, then you don’t have to do too much calculating to see that it’s the language you are using that is making people bounce back off the page, as they won’t be scrolling any further down the page to get to the German.

International SEO Takeaway: This tool is a beaut. When used properly, it can really take your international SEO to the next level. But always err on the side of caution, and see if you can find a native speaker to look over the content for any nuances particular to the region.

International SEO Tip #4: Content & Context

Siobhan O’Rorke, Marketing and Communications Manager at Lookeen

Make sure the keywords you’re optimizing your site for are making sense in the context of the languages you’re translating to. Find a native speaker to perform detailed keyword analysis in each language, and to test them (preferably in the target country).

Jitesh Keswani, Co-Founder, E-Intelligence

Get closer to your target native search audience. As the culture and language of your visitors vary from country to country, the basic online search pattern also differs. You want to ensure, as a marketer, that your website speaks to them in the tone that they are comfortable with. And this is not just limited to text – also consider the media and colors used on your web properties.

For example, if your website is full of images that relate more to the western world, then you may not get much out of your presence in the online search space in Japan. Accuracy and professionalism are the keys to pleasing your local search audience. For your international SEO to be a successful venture, it’s important for you to win their trust.

Jimmy Rodriguez, COO, 3dcart

The one thing that is universal across the globe is good content. If you want to rank globally, pump out high-quality content that is useful to an audience worldwide. Try to keep your topics general rather than culture or location-specific. For the most part, the same burning questions that people have in the US, they will have in Canada or Australia. The psychology of humans is universal which is why pumping out content based on global keyword research is one of the best SEO strategies. This of course, given that all on-site aspects are optimized for global search.

Colt Foutz, Director of Digital Content Optimization, TransPerfect

Localized content – preferably written by a native speaker familiar with your industry vertical – is, by its nature, unique content. It won’t count against you as duplicate, and you don’t need to flag the original language page as canonical – which could work against you in getting the new language page to rank. But for every unique market with different cultural norms, consider experimenting with a different design. The right graphics and spatial organization of your site can make a difference in user experience and getting customers to convert.

Oh- and don’t forget to translate image ALT-tags.

International SEO Takeaway: Content and context may just be the new peanut butter and jelly. You can have one without the other, but damn they really are better together.

Overseas SEO Tip #5: Build Links

Nenad Cuk, Marketing Manager, Thoughtlab

Start building links from websites that are optimized for the target country. If all of the links are coming in from a .ru website, and you are trying to rank for .ag, you won’t get as much of a push as if you got other .ag sites or even sites from Latin America that have the same language in their content. Just as one wouldn’t expect to get a rank boost to US sites by pulling in links from irrelevant sites outside of the market, a company shouldn’t expect to get a rank boost by using irrelevant countries in their citation building.

Matthew Mercuri, Digital Marketing Manager, Dupray

Interact with people who you have already done business with. When your clients and customers get a follow on Twitter, they’re significantly more likely to follow you back. Moreover, you need to narrow down and eliminate the people most likely to ignore you on Social Media. Ashton Kutcher will not be your friend online, nor will Kim Kardashian. BUT, the local bakery owner will. Your sister, best friend, and family will. So will your German clients. You need to do whatever it takes to get a base. This base will allow you to successfully publish content while tapping into the networks of that base.

Jason Ohsie, Digital Marketing (SEO) Department Manager, Direct Online Marketing

The importance of building quality links cannot be understated for SEO today and, most likely, into the future. Link building for international SEO, in particular, can be challenging to navigate because of inherent cultural differences and language barriers to non-native speakers. To get the most out of outreach efforts, you have to be systematic in your approach. Using your favorite link-building analytical tool – there are several good ones you can use – start by identifying and prioritizing link opportunities that genuinely represent the best fits for your content or business objectives.

For the top candidate backlinks with high-quality domain authority or trust flow, spend time doing your homework by engaging in deep research about their brand. Ask yourself: who might be their target demographic and psychographic audience? What pain points are the brand looking to solve? Are there local initiatives they are looking to promote?

While it may seem like a lot of work on the front end, there is tremendous lasting value in high-quality backlinks that will more than reward the significant investment in time. For the rest of your list, craft a short, personal message with a strong call-to-action. Provide value to the person receiving each email. Be clear and direct about your objective. Think about being the person receiving the email and what would compel you to take action on behalf of that person

Jessica Carmona, Marketing and Business Growth Manager, Guarana Technologies

If you’re expanding your business to other countries, local SEO should be one of your top priorities. It’s important to make sure your NAP (Number, Address, Phone) is consistent all across platforms such as Google Business, Bing, Yelp, Foursquare, and any other directories you might find relevant. Since you might not have an actual address and local phone number yet, a great strategy to solve that issue is to use services such as Virtual Business Addresses (which many coworking spaces provide) and software such as CallRail.com to get a local address and phone number and start on your International SEO as soon as possible. Additionally, you can add schema markups to your pages to help search engines understand where you’re located.

Ronald D’souza, Digital Marketing Manager, Angel Jackets

Link building plays a vital role in how you rank on a SERP. On the other hand, it provides you with the opportunity to reach more people who could relate to your brand or service.

A good link building technique involves building relationships with bloggers and influencers of your niche industry and providing value to them. You should be able to communicate what value your story could provide and why their audience would be interested in it. One great tip to get potential backlinks is by searching #journorequest on twitter advanced search and selecting your target country. You will find a lot of people looking for your expert opinion or input.

Vukasin Vukosavljevic, Head of Growth, lemlist

A big push with SEO is always the backlinks you’re able to get to rank high. But, in order to find those links without burning through your budget, you have to invest significant time into your email outreach and the way you approach people. The reality of the situation is that backlink outreach is extremely competitive and it’s hard to get a breakthrough in a busy inbox. The best way to grab the attention is to personalize your cold emails and focus on biz dev rather than direct asks.

Michael Dello Russo, Digital Marketing Coordinator, Direct Online Marketing

Backlinks are important, but don’t overlook the value of internal links, or links to other areas of your site. When dealing with content that appears in multiple languages, I create separate URLs for each translation. This makes internal linking a breeze.

Also, if a page has any other language translations, I link it at least once in the copy. This helps build links throughout each of the articles, gives the reader language options, and helps them easily navigate to their preferred language in the event they are automatically redirected to a page in the wrong language.

International SEO Takeaway: Ah links, the social butterfly of SEO. And like a butterfly, they are delicate, finicky creatures that will beautify your site (for rankings that is). Handle with care.

International SEO Tip #6: Think Beyond Google

Val Kaplan, Marketing Director, Sampi Marketing

China is one of a handful of countries where Google is completely irrelevant. It’s market share is currently less than 1% and the access is also blocked from the Mainland. The largest search engine in China is Baidu (about 60% market share) and SEO must focus on optimizing for that service rather than Google. Also, websites that are hosted outside of China load considerably slower than those hosted on servers within the country.

The difference is mainly due to China’s Great Firewall that filters and slows down the traffic coming from the outside. The slow loading, in turn, hurts Baidu ranking. Unfortunately, in order to host in China, a website must first apply for ICP (internet content provider) license issued by the government which can only be obtained by locally registered businesses. Solution: if a company is serious about getting in the Chinese market they should open a company here first.

Dimitri Semenikhin, Founder, Yacht Harbour

An important factor in international SEO is to remember that Google is not the only game you need to play. Russia, for example, is predominantly dominated by Yandex. Its rules and metrics are different and optimization strategies can actually differ or even cancel out in terms of SEO for Google or Yandex. Make sure you weigh the potential benefits of branching out to different regions before investing in SEO as you could cannibalize existing traffic.

Steven Macdonald, Digital Marketing Manager, SuperOffice

I believe the key to any successful international SEO campaign is to start by looking at the visits by a country report in Google Analytics (found under Audience > Geo > Location). It’s much easier to succeed with international SEO if an audience in that country already exists.

To reach 50,000 visits, we first looked at visitor data in Google Analytics and found at least 11% of visits came from Russia. We then set up a small,  basic 4-page website in Russian that covered product and contact information. We implemented hreflang to make sure Google displayed the Russian website on google.ru, and added the website to Yandex’s Webmaster Tools. Finally, we sent out an email to partners and asked that they link to our new Russian website, which led to a handful of high-quality links.

Within 12 months, this activity, which cost us $0 led to $54,000 in online sales.

International SEO Takeaway: Sadly, in some countries, our beloved Google (transparency: we are a Premier Google Partner)is the red-headed stepchild (my apologies to any red-headed stepchildren reading this post, no offense is meant). While researching what your target market is searching for, make note of what they’re searching on.

Overseas SEO Tip #7: Doing B2B In New Countries

Maxim Shomov, Digital Marketing Leader, Fair Point GmbH

From my experience, B2B SEO doesn‘t differ from regular search engine optimization. You still have to deal with the Google algorithm to rank high. However, other marketers often tend to forget that even in B2B marketing, you interact with real people, be it business owners or other decision-makers. The key to a successful campaign is to tap into their emotions. This is what makes B2B marketing harder than B2C – these people are used to marketers trying to sell them products and services.

Jignesh Gohel, Founder and Marketing Head, Olbuz

The best tip to acquire international clients is deciding what industry or brand you are planning to pitch and start studying their competitors, business opportunities and missing dots on their website/brand / or in marketing strategies. Pitch with useful information: what they are missing and how you can improve with all your research and data. Here the key part is to reach the right person of the brand you are pitching and you won half battle. I have seen most of the agencies used to sends thousands of emails with the same format has no personalized touch and will hardly attract the other party.

Chad Remp, Operations Manager, Wheeling Truck
I would state the most important thing is for international visitors to your website to know that you accept international orders. Many (I mean a lot) of websites/companies will not sell internationally, and they even state this on their website. We want to make sure our international customers understand we want their business. We have “International Orders” listed at the top of our page so foreign visitors know we want their business.

Adam Stetzer, CEO, HubShout

It is important to NOT overthink International SEO. In fact, many of the factors are identical. That being said, for international businesses, there are several considerations. There are subtle language differences, even among English speaking countries. In addition to different spellings, reference points and norms can be very different. And slang is certainly different. Be sensitive to this fact. As meetings are set up, obviously time-zone problems will present themselves. As for pricing and commerce, exchange rates can be significant – and change. If you write a 12-month contract from the US for a client in the EU, be prepared to specify what currency you will be paid in.

International SEO Takeaway: Businesses are people, too! Well, not really, but they sure do have people working there, and it’s important to remember that. Treating people like, well, people, can have an astounding effect on your B2B efforts.

What Have We Learned Today From These International SEO Consultants?

Search engine optimization is constantly evolving. What works today may not be as effective tomorrow. This is especially true in international SEO: what works in one country may not work in another.

So, before you head off to implement an international SEO services strategy,  please consider the following your new checklist:

• Do your homework on the country, culture, and dialects
• Contemplate if a ccTLD would be most beneficial or if going the subdomain route would be best for your company and campaign.
• Use your hreflang tags, but still have a native speaker make sure that the content (and your context!) is appealing and accurate – not jumbled or offensive.
• Build links! This leads to building relationships with trusted members of your international target market.
• Make sure to comply with local search engine protocol – Google does not reign supreme in all countries and failing to recognize that could come back to bite you.
• Just because you’re in B2B does not mean that customer service has left the building- adding a personal touch to communications with another business can be what seals the deal. Read up on the customs of business dealings in new territories, and comply to the best of your ability.

That is all for now, my digital darlings. Want to learn more about international SEO and international search engine marketing? Check out any one of these helpful resources written by our team below:

• How Online Marketing Helps Global Exporters Grow
• Our General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance Checklist
• Australian AO Says SEO Horror Stories by Dodgy Practitioners Need Regulation

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free SEO services consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

Updated July 3, 2024

The post International SEO Tips – Updated 2024 appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Lucky for you (and, really, everyone) the advice we shared with you when we first published this post hasn’t changed, and it all still applies. The biggest change is not the what but the when. As we outlined in this more recent post, the changes we’re expecting aren’t set to occur until mid-June 2021 with a slow rollout over the summer.

As We Were Saying

Google constantly makes changes to its algorithm. Deep in a server room somewhere, a handful of code is modified by a developer and, a week later, your page’s search results tank. Or maybe they go up. You never know what the code is going to do until the change happens, and then it’s up to us SEO wizards to decipher what might have just changed and what we might be able to do about it. Most of the time, Google doesn’t tell us what it did, and we have to rely on our wizardry research to help us figure it out.

Once in a while, like in its Core Web Vitals announcement not long ago, Google lets us know what it plans to change in how its algorithm ranks pages or displays search results. They have a good reason to warn us when those are going to be big changes: if we know about a substantial change coming, we can get ready for it in advance, and the modifications in the search results will become immediately apparent. Better search results mean people are finding what they’re looking for and are having a good experience at the website they visit to get the information they’re searching for.

Well, that web page experience is set to become one of the newest concerns for the Google search algorithm, though we would argue that it’s always been important. You want to enjoy the time you spend on a website, right?

Welcome to Core Web Vitals 101

It’s okay if you didn’t know what Core Web Vitals were before Google started talking about them. That happens a lot in SEO. We carry on, optimizing our websites for maximum search potential, adding our weaponry to the digital marketing fight wherever we can. Core Web Vitals is just the newest knife in the drawer, the newest sword on the wall, the newest axe on the dwarf.

Take the words core, web, and vitals together, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: the beating heart of the world wide web. If you were to measure the health of a website, you would look to these core vitals first. The core vitals of the website are answers to these questions:

How fast does the page load?

Google calls this the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). It’s a measure of how quickly the largest element loads (an image or embedded video, usually). There are a variety of free tools out there that can help you measure this timing. Here at DOM, we typically recommend Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool or Pingdom from Solarwinds, but there are others worth evaluating, too, like GTMetrix, YSlow, and Uptrends.

How quickly can a user interact with the page?

This gets an initialism, too: First Input Delay (FID). This subset of page speed measures how quickly the page, once loaded, is available for user input. Just as with LCP, the faster the better.

Is the page layout stable, once it loads?

This one is Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). It’s a measurement of how much a website changes, visually, once it loads. If you’ve ever had a website shift weirdly when you tried to click inside a form to fill out, you know how annoying this can be. Visual stability is one of those basic metrics of a website that Google expects to see, and the ranking factor it intends to use.

These all constitute what Google calls Core Web Vitals because these user experience metrics are useful shorthand in deciding where pages should be ranked. This makes even more sense when you consider why Google would want to give the user experience more weight in its search results: user experience is an indicator of the value of the information being presented. Sometimes things that look foul actually are.

These all matter more, but still don’t matter most

Google will be the first to tell you something that, as an SEO wizard yourself (or aspiring one), you probably already knew: these are just a few additional touchpoints, or signals, that Google uses to measure how it will rank websites in its SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

It’s not that suddenly these Core Web Vitals never mattered, or that the other hundreds of signals Google tracks aren’t valid anymore, but that these three signals matter a little more than they did before. Or at least they will, once these changes are in place. Google has suggested that the changes will take place sometime in 2021 (June 2021, as of May 2021), and they indicated that they will provide six months’ warning before making such changes, no matter when they happen.

So What Can You Do?

Google is serious about shining the brightest light it can on these measurements, but you won’t need the Phial of Galadriel to find them.

You can already get these reports in many places, including Google Search Console. Google wants you to make your websites more compliant with its user experience benchmarks because a better user experience means a better internet, and better internet is the only kind of internet we want.

If you found this article helpful, you might want to check out one of these other posts on getting the most out of Google Search Console for your SEO efforts.

• Core Web Vitals Update: It’s Coming (Eventually)
• How To Make the Google Knowledge Panel Work For You
• Set Your Course In Google Search Console With International Targeting
• How and Why to Link Google Search Console in Google Ads

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

The post What are Core Web Vitals and What Should I Do About Them? (Updated May 2021) appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Why do you think we’re writing this article?

Your wheels are turning. What a confusing lead question.

Maybe you feel that we’re writing this because we understand the subject?

The above is somewhat true. But it isn’t the main reason we’re writing this article. And the fact that you don’t know why we’re writing this article means you’re on a lousy content marketing path.

So why are we writing this article? We’ll get to that – but first, let’s switch things up.

You’ve written the ultimate masterpiece blog. When you hit publish, you hear the sounds of fireworks and cheers. You’ve done it; you’ve changed the internet. Upon reading your helpful guide, digital marketers realize an advertising axiom has swerved off course.

But there is only one problem: you’ll never know if any of this is truth, fact, or just your narcissistic tendencies erupting like sweltering hot lava that’s been trapped under a Pacific island for centuries.

Why?

Because you don’t do data.

We wrote this article because, unlike you, we do do data. (hang tight, we’ve got a much better explanation further down in the article)

Maybe you think that you do do data.

Because you installed Google Analytics. You look at traffic numbers. You know your most popular blog articles. You once read a great article on bounce rates. You watched an online Google Analytics tutorial. So you’re an expert.

Eventually, a cold reality summons itself from the real world. Because what you think is great content doesn’t matter. What we think is great content doesn’t matter. We aren’t buying a sport coat, our opinion on things isn’t discovered through vanity. To figure out if what we wrote wins, we must leverage analytics. And that doesn’t mean simply monitoring user sessions. This means applying Google Analytics to content marketing strategy and setting our sails appropriately.

Why Google Analytics Fuels Content Marketing Strategy

If Google Analytics isn’t driving your content marketing agenda, that means emotion is driving it. Like a gambler perched at a blackjack table at Mandalay Bay, emotion will drive a wedge between you and your bank account eventually. The longer you sit, the less favorable your odds of keeping your winnings become.

Google Analytics helps us eliminate emotional decisions regarding our content marketing strategy.

Writing is an art form. When we produce art, we do so by way of emotion. So, we become attached to our work. That’s normal mental processing during a content production phase. This is why many writers fear editorial processing that results in criticism of their work.

There has never been a better time to refine your writing skills. The use of modern analytics programs allows us to glean real-time responses to our content. We no longer depend on our friend or brother-in-law to read our content and stroke our egos. We simply access Google Analytics do decipher what’s happening with the content we create.

We examine.

We digest.

We adjust our strategy.

That’s how you win the content game.

So how does Google Analytics improve your content marketing strategy?

• It tells you what content is working, which indicates what content you should create more of, which amounts to improving your content marketing strategy.
• It determines the effectiveness of past content marketing efforts.
• It reveals which content Google’s SEO algorithm rewards the most.
• It appraises the depth of readership: how long did people read? Which sections did they pass on or skip to?
• It actuates a viable content strategy.

Suddenly, you’re no longer a slave to emotion; instead, you’re a driver of content marketing revenue and lead capture.

But how do we leverage Google Analytics in a way that enhances and improves our content marketing?

We’re glad you asked.

How to Leverage Google Analytics for Superior Content Marketing Strategy

Every marketer wants different things. Some of us like pie while others crave gummy bears. The point is, one marketer’s content marketing goals might not be the same as another’s.

But most content marketing goals align rather well. That’s because methods of creating revenue from a website, while multi-dimensional, aren’t that various. Your content’s traffic source potential is limited in scope.

The point being, you need to put energy into all traffic sources.

Let’s start with search engine optimization.

A Powerful Combination: Using Google Analytics and Search Console to Improve Content Marketing

Remember earlier when we asked you why we wrote this article?

You didn’t know.

In simple terms, we wrote this article because Google tends to rank us high for articles about analytics. They do this because our Google Analytics articles bring value. Google’s search algorithm determines content value by using analytics (maybe not Google Analytics, but some sort of analytics). They want articles that get clicks and show competitive reading time (we’ll get to all of that).

For now, just know that Google signals to us, even if inadvertently, which of our content users enjoy. But more importantly, which content categories Google feels we excel at producing.

No, Google won’t write you a letter telling you what content to create. Instead, they use analytics to decide which content overall is most appropriate given specific searches. And we use their analytics to interpret our successes and failures.

Let’s break this down with a real example:

Using Google Search Console, we can see which search terms we rank for, get clicks and impressions for, and trend for. Google Search Console’s interface allows for the consumption of easily digestible data.

Our blog ranks competitively for many Google Analytics keywords. We can see this in our Search Console.

Why do we rank well for Google Analytics content?

Because it’s good. Because we have analytics superstar staff members creating gems such as:

The Best Google Tag Manager Recipes | Free Data Studio Report Templates | How To Track Users Across Subdomains

All of these articles rank well. They provide information that a marketer can take action on immediately. You can download data studio reports within seconds. This could change your data organization process overnight.

Google realizes that users can extract great benefit from these articles. Better yet, the articles are easy to read, and any marketer can understand how to take action.

These, too:

Why Is Your Direct Traffic in Google Analytics So High? | How To Be a Data Driven Decision Maker

Because DOM ranks well for keywords relating to Google Analytics, we produce more content around it.

We understand what content performs best by using Google Search Console. To complete the experience, we hook up Search Console to our Google Analytics account.

Now, when we log in to Google Analytics, we see more in-depth information on our keywords and traffic production.

To access search information, go to Behavior > Site Search > Search Terms:

In Google Search Console, you will need to sign up here. Then verify your site with Google. Once that’s accomplished, login to Search Console and click here.

Now, we understand where to find our keyword rankings in both Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

So we should only look for content that Google likes, right?

Not so fast.

Should You Only Create Content That Google Search Appreciates?

Your keyword rankings are one part of a data-driven environment. Google search rankings aren’t perfect. The algorithm can miss great content, and it can also rank terrible content. Which is why Google frequently refines and modernizes its algorithm.

That said, building a content strategy around data extracted from Google’s ranking tools is a sound strategy. It doesn’t mean you can’t create other types of content. We have some great pay per click and search engine optimization solutions included in our digital marketing services.

Data serves to guide us, not restrict us. It enables us to evolve; it shouldn’t hamstring our efforts.

Social Media…About That…

We explained that Google organic rankings help us understand what content is good, what content is bad, and what content is so-so.

But many content marketers drastically underestimate how different social media and search are.

It’s not just that Facebook and Google Search are different platforms; it’s also that people use each much differently.

Because of this, content marketers need to create unique titles for each platform. In some cases, the Google Search title can be the same as the social media title. But not always. Marketers need to examine this with each piece of content they produce.

Let me show you how we view headline/title creation:

This is our email marketing guide. Inside, you’ll find information on email newsletter headline creation. You don’t need that NOW, but at some point, you need to understand how to craft awesome headlines. Instead, let’s examine how we leverage SEO Yoast to appropriate headlines for my newsletter article.

Notice anything peculiar?

All of these titles are unique.

So, why do we do that?

The first title is the on-page title that shows up when you click the article. We want that article to be too the point. While we don’t want to deploy a boring headline, it’s important to account for the fact that the person clicked already. We’re not encouraging a click, we’re validating they found the right article to serve their needs.

The second title is for social media, mainly Facebook and Twitter. Social headlines need to be a little more aggressive to get clicks. Remember, Facebook and Twitter favors content that garners engagement. People scroll and you have a mere second to encourage them to give your article a shot.

That means we want my social headline shorter. We want it to be juicier. Those are two attributes we don’t want our SEO title to always possess. But if we don’t divide headlines, we choose one over the other.

The third title is our SEO title. It’s straightforward but we loaded the powerful keywords in the beginning. On the social title, keywords are less of a concern.

This article isn’t about headline crafting. You’ll need to do your research and test your site to determine what’s best for you. The point is that you need to make sure your articles use services like Yoast to divide up titles for specific purposes. And if your site isn’t built on WordPress, some social platforms allow for creating custom titles. Doing so influences clicks. If your article’s headline fails to achieve clicks in the SERPs, or on social media, your article dies.

Bounce Rate…Eh…Time On Site: Why They Love Us, Why They Hate Us

Wouldn’t it be great to see if people start reading our articles and then abruptly leave? It would reveal a pretty big problem. When readers make it past the intro, this tells us that we bore our audience. Or it tells us the user feels mislead by the headline (either on Facebook, or in search results, or on the article). It could say to us that people are finding our article from a website that is misleading them.

Time On Site (TOS) gauges readership health. When TOS is low, it signals that our content might not be up to snuff.

There are exceptions:

• The content is purposely short. Our free data studio article (linked above) is short. But it’s incredibly useful. So the TOS can be low in such a case.
• Maybe someone linked to your article under misleading terms. If someone links “learn more about consumer hammers” to your article about email marketing, people are going to abandon.

Strange linking happens, typically by accident. You can contact the site owner to help resolve such matters.

However, when TOS is low beyond the above two examples, that’s a red flag. It means you need to examine the content.

Is the intro engaging?

Is it interesting?

Does it hook the reader?

Is the article broken up into relevant sub-headers?

People need to be engaged immediately. They also need to find what they are looking for quickly. If you fail at those, people bounce.

Some people confuse bounce rate and TOS. Bounce rate implies that someone clicked on your content and then clicked to another site. In other words, they only viewed one piece of your content. A bounce rate can happen after someone read your 11,000-word article for 19 minutes. That’s a good thing.

For content marketing, TOS is the imperative metric to interpret readership. Bounce rate can be meaningful. But you need to understand its practical use. Here’s our bounce rate guide, have a read (later please, things are just now getting good).

How’s Your Mobile Experience?

Your masterpiece is complete. You’ve hit the WordPress PUBLISH button without a drip of sweat. You know you’ve got a winner.

But alas, it all falls apart. The TOS lags. It doesn’t rank on Google. Facebook stopped showing it in your fan’s feeds.

You’ve pulled the article up on your beautiful MacBook Pro at least 25 times. You’ve reread and reread. It makes no sense.

It’s all a bust. You suck at content marketing. You start looking for jobs at gas stations.

WAIT.

Let’s slow down.

Did you happen to check your iPhone? What about your friend’s Android?

If you don’t optimize your articles for mobile, your articles stand no chance of success on any platform.

So what’s first? View a grip of your articles on mobile devices. How do they load? Are they readable or is there some sort of weird alignment that distracts from the content?

Let’s run a basic organic mobile health check.

First, login to Search Console.

Click “Search Results” (we were here earlier).

Then click “Devices.”

Most of your clicks should come from mobile (not always, but mostly). You are looking to make sure you are getting clicks.

You also want to make sure you aren’t getting any mobile usability alerts.

Next, slide down to where it says “Mobile Usability.” Click it.

Do you see errors? If so, see if you can fix them. If not, congrats, so far things are looking good.

Next, swing by our old friend Google Analytics. Now do Acquisition > Search Console > Devices.

If you haven’t hooked up your Google Webmaster Tools to Google Analytics, you’ll be asked to do so now. If you have, dive in and make sure your mobile stats are healthy.

You want to break things down by device, which your view will default to. If your TOS is low on Apple iPhone, but not Android devices, you know where the problem exists.

It’s possible that only certain versions of iOS may show issues with your content. Or tablet devices could make things funky. When it comes to content display issues, the world is your device oyster.

While discovering issues may feel overwhelming, it should be viewed as a good thing. Once you solve mobile usability issues for your content marketing, things can only get better.

Your Site Is Slow

Hi,

Meet mister friendly turtle.

How cute!

Few things on this earth are cuter than a turtle plopping across a beach. Except maybe a puppy playing in a plastic pool. Or babies eating baby food. Ok, there are cuter things, but turtles are pretty cute.

Until they aren’t.

Imagine if the turtle in the picture was carrying all the contents of your article from you to the person who clicked from Google.

What would that look like?

It would look like partially loaded page zones. It would feel like anguish. It would result in abandonment (remember TOS? Yeah, that would be junk again).

Slow response times are a plague to content marketers. You only have a few seconds (if that) to capture your reader. If a potential reader has to endure a big, underoptimized header image for 10 seconds, they’ll be gone.

You can test site speed using tools like Pingdom or Google Site Speed (the two free solutions we typically recommend here at DOM) or even a premium tool like GTMetrix. But one of the best ways to understand your site’s speed health is located in Google Analytics.

You can also use Page Timings and Speed Suggestions to help you diagnose and fix issues. You can determine if particular articles are slower than others. If so, you can fix those issues. Maybe an awesome article has something embedded near the top of it that’s slowing load times?

Most general speed issues are related to WordPress plugins and themes. Some are related to improperly set up servers.

Your site speed will never be perfect, but you can do the best you can to improve it by leveraging analytics.

Who’s Looking?

Wouldn’t it be great to get an idea of what type of visitors read your site’s articles?

We’ll spare you the metaphorical diatribe here. Instead, we’ll introduce Google Analytics Affinity Reports.

In Google Analytics, go to Behavior > Site Speed > Overview.

At this juncture, you’ll find a basic overview number of your site’s entire content library.

To access these reports in Google Analytics, go Audience > Interests > Affinity Categories:

To the right, you’ll see your users groups and categories.

How do you use affinity reports with content marketing?

Look at the major audiences reading your site. Can you develop content for them? Could you discover new content ideas?

Look at the audiences you perform poorly with. Do they have low TOS? If so, that might indicate that you shouldn’t produce that type of content. Again, no one stat should drive your entire content marketing strategy. But affinity reports may help reveal troubled waters that need further analytical dives.

Conclusion

Content marketers should use Google Analytics to determine content strategy and health. By avoiding deep-dive analytics, content marketers fly by the seat of their pants. In analytics, we often discover new content opportunities and shave time-waste.

We can learn more about our readers, what they like, and what they want, by using data. We can also become better content creators because Google Analytics helps us understand where we fall short and where we succeed in writing.

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

The post How Google Analytics Empowers Content Marketing Strategy (Updated August 2020) appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

You may not realize it, but your website definitely has tags on it. JavaScript tagging is the tool which makes it possible to run ads on Google or Facebook, as well as tracking how users engage with your website.

Before the creation of tag management technology like GTM, tags had to be hard-coded and applied to every single page of a site, whether directly on each page or through a shared template. 

For many years, site owners were left with few options to manage all of their tags. Then in 2012, Google Tag Manager was introduced as a simple interface and central hub for site owners to control how and what they track on their website. Not only does GTM make tag management easier, but the service has also always been free to use.

GTM is designed to streamline tag management while eliminating the need to work with a web developer to implement tracking code to one or more pages on your site.

However, implementing Google Tag Manager isn’t always a simple process. Some developers debate whether using it is even worth getting it set up on their site.

Google Tag Manager Terminology

Before we jump in, let’s get familiar with a few definitions and terms which pertain to Google Tag Manager.

Containers

Similar to the account structure within Google Analytics, a user can create a Google Tag Manager account to manage multiple websites or mobile apps. When managing individual properties, account users will set up what is known as a container.

A container functions as a method for grouping tags together. Through the GTM interface, users can integrate all of their supported tags into a single container.

Think of GTM containers as a shopping basket where you drop in all of the items you want to buy. You could try and juggle each item in your arms, but the basket functions as a more effective way to keep them together.

Within the GTM interface, the container is where you will also find the code snippet you’ll apply to all pages on your site. This is your container code, and it needs to be in the source code within each page of your site.

Once a container exists, and you’ve configured all tags in GTM, this container code is all you need on your site, as opposed to multiple code snippets on each page. From there, GTM breaks out tracking configuration into three categories: tags, triggers, and filters.

Tags

A few of the uses for tags include monitoring form submissions, conducting surveys, generating heat maps, placing cookies for retargeting, and tracking how people interact with your site.

Tags can also monitor specific events or actions users take such as downloading files, clicking on particular links, or adding items to their shopping cart.

Websites often leverage multiple tags, and they usually require assistance from developers or designated CMS plugins to manage them. With GTM, website owners can add, edit, or disable tags right from the GTM interface, removing the need for extra development efforts.

Triggers

Think of triggers as conditions that, once met, tell your tags to activate or “fire.” User actions taken on your website—commonly referred to as events—can only be monitored with the help of pre-defined triggers.

Common actions that will cause triggers include form fills, link clicks, and page scrolls. In order for an engagement metric to be measured, events must have a trigger associated with them.  

Triggers in GTM essentially automate your tagging efforts and require you to spend less time assigning new tags to the pages of your site.

Filters

After defining the type of trigger you want, you can refine your trigger further with filters. Categorized into “operators” and “values,” these factors are specific to their trigger.

• Operators define whether a numerical event is significant enough to cause a trigger; For example less than two, equal to 3, or greater than ten. Operators specify when a tag should fire based on an event, such as several successive clicks, time spent on a page, or time spent watching a video occurring a set number of times.
• Values dictate whether a trigger should be fired based on a met condition. The value may have to contain a specific URL or words like “thank you.”

Variables

Variables are defined conditions that signify when a trigger should cause a tag to fire, containing information a trigger needs to evaluate beforehand.

• Tag Variables: Capture dynamic values. This variable adds context to your tracking for when you want details about the event. 
• Trigger Variables: Define filters for when tags should fire. Trigger variables make sure your GTM tracks specific actions instead of a broad umbrella of actions. For example: fire a pageview trigger when the URL variable is “directom.com/contact-us/.”

Templates

If you find yourself using the same variables and filters over and over again, you have the option to make templates that can prepopulate fields and create a defined set that you can use to automate the often time-intensive work of setting up your GTM.

Immediate Benefits of GTM

If you’re wondering whether GTM is right for you, GTM’s functionality for managing tags, most notably with an application to Google’s suite of other platforms.

Google Tag Manager with Other Google Products

GTM is often used to install Google Ads tracking code on your site. If you are contemplating using Google Ads and haven’t set up appropriate tracking or you feel like optimizing your current configuration, doing so via GTM will make your life easier. 

Outside of Google Ads, GTM and Google Analytics work together to track your website events and reduce code edits on your backend. With GTM, Google Analytics can collect event data like button clicks and scroll length.

In fact, Google Analytics by itself is not equipped to track events. GA alone is only configured to record traffic data, and not for recording events like button/link clicks. Note that you can implement event tracking in GA without GTM. However, you would need to apply your tracking code on a page-by-page basis.

As you can imagine, that is an extremely manual process and a huge time-suck.

Utilizing Google Tag Manager for both GA and Google Ads will reduce the amount of friction between marketing teams and web developers while enabling marketers to implement advanced tracking for their campaigns.  

Here’s a look at a few other uses for Google Tag Manager:

Other Common GTM Uses

• Heatmapping/CRO software: Conversion rate optimization (CRO) aims to make your website more conversion friendly by tracking how users interact with your site. With the help of GTM, CRO implementations can be put in place to track events and user behavior without having to code it into the specific pages being tested. For those familiar with heatmapping software such as Hotjar, GTM allows you to implement their tracking code easily.
• Pixel conversion tracking: Using GTM to install display and social pixel conversion tracking works, in the same way, as it does with Google Ads and GA implementation.

Making Your Life Easier in the Long Run

The learning curve for understanding GTM is steep; however, once you master the basics, tracking becomes simpler in the long run. Luckily, with its testing feature, you have more control over the implementation of your tags before publishing.

For sites and businesses engaged in multiple online marketing platforms, GTM will condense all your separate codes and pieces into one place.

If you’re interested in getting more value and actionable insights from your Google Analytics data, talk to us today to sign up for a FREE digital marketing audit.

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

The post What Is Google Tag Manager and Why Does Your Site Need It? (Updated July 2020) appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Here’s some help going international. This video lays out 5 resources to start or optimize your export marketing. Your business may qualify for grants or loans from federal, state, or municipal organizations that aim to help U.S.-based companies expand their reach internationally.

Does your business operate in different countries? Hoping to find new customers in new markets with international targeting SEO strategies on a new site? Google Search Console international targeting may be an easy (and effective) answer to your hopes and dreams.

If you answered yes to either of these questions, your organization should take advantage of one of the most underutilized features in Google Search Console.

International Targeting.

This feature in Search Console is so underutilized that when Google announced in January 2019 that they were migrating and discontinuing several features from Search Console, they didn’t even mention international targeting.

It’s still not getting the attention it deserves in old Google Search Console. To date, there are still no publicly disclosed plans for how Google is going to handle this feature in the future.

Regardless if it lives on forever in old Search Console, or if it thrives someday in the new Search Console, international targeting SEO strategies can be an asset to your goals of global domination on the world wide web.

Brace yourself. You are about to learn everything you ever wanted to know about international targeting in Google Search Console.

Language Tab: Troubleshoot Your Hreflang Errors

Utilizing hreflang markup in the header file of a website is nothing new for businesses trying to grow confidently online in international markets.

How do you know if you should be using hreflang markup on your site? Well, here are four easy ways to determine that.

• Your website targets countries that speak different languages than your native tongue
• A country you are targeting with your website has multiple official languages
• Your website domain is generic (.com, .org, .edu, etc.) but you want to target visitors that speak certain languages in specific countries
• Your website domain ends in a ccTLD (like.io or .me) that does not match the TLD of your target country

But just because you can identify that you should be using hreflang markup on your site doesn’t mean it will always be implemented correctly.

In fact, a 2017 study by growth hacking platform Serpstat indexed over 2.9 million pages with SEO issues stemming from hreflang errors.

In the event that you, your SEO team, or your developer have implemented hreflang incorrectly, International Targeting has a tab for helping you fix that.

Within the Language tab of International Targeting, you will find feedback on two specific hreflang errors:

1. No return tags
2. Unknown language code

No return tags will trigger if you have a language tag identified in your hreflang that is not matched on an individual page, in a sitemap, or in a header file.

The Unknown language code will trigger if you have hreflang installed on your site, but the browser fails to recognize your combination of language codes and country codes.

For instance, if you wanted to target Chinese speakers in Canada, but you documented your hreflang tag as zh-ca, this code would trigger. The proper language code for simplified Chinese is zh-hans.

Interested in seeing all of the approved language and country codes? Click the two links below.

• Approved Language Codes for hreflang markup
• Approved Country Codes for hreflang markup

Still, you think you don’t have the coding chops to tackle hreflang? Only have one domain to target at one language in one country? You can potentially skip hreflang altogether and leverage the Country Tab instead.

Country Tab: Tell Google Exactly Where To Showcase Your Site

The Country Tab in Google Search Console is an oldie but goodie for your international targeting efforts.

It is important to acknowledge in advance, however, that the Country Tab is a one trick pony. The Country Tab in International Targeting will only serve your needs if your situation meets the following criteria:

1. You only have one country to target with your domain
2. You only have one language in that country to target with your domain

Here’s a step by step guide (with screenshots) for how to identify your target country using the Country Tab in old Google Search Console. Assuming you are starting this journey in new Search Console:

1. Click the dropdown in the bottom left of the screen to uncover ‘Legacy Tools and Reports.’ Then select ‘International targeting.’

   

2. By default, International Targeting loads the Language tab first. Click the tab to switch to Country.

   

3. Check the box next to “Target users in” to activate the dropdown box. Scroll to select the country you want to target.

   

4. Once you have selected your country, don’t forget to click save.

   

By following these simple steps, you should be able to successfully geotarget a domain using International Targeting in Google Search Console.

So Does Google Search Console International Targeting Actually Work For SEO?

In practice, we have definitely seen this work. Especially when you are operating a trustworthy domain and the only differentiation is a:

• Country code top level domain (CCTLD), or
• a hreflang tagged subfolder

We can feel your skepticism, though. So if you don’t want to take the sage advice of an SEO Strategist from a digital marketing firm, that’s cool. We understand.

Instead, would you trust the advice provided by one of Google’s leading Webmaster Trends Analysts?

We thought you might.

On May 6, 2020, reddit user Christelleorangee asked a similar question in the TechSEO subreddit: Does search consoles “target audience in:” have any effect?

And Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes – respectfully known as @methode to most of the social web – chimed in with this response.

Thanks for jumping in and providing some feedback, Gary.

To recap Gary’s insights in bullet point fashion:

• Setting a specific country in Google Search Console’s International Targeting doesn’t prevent it from being shown in other countries.
• However, it does signal to Google that your content is extra relevant to users in a specific country.

Because of that, leveraging this tool if you have a specific country to show a subfolder, subdomain, or CCTLD can improve the chances of SEO success for your domain in your target location.

PS – Hat tip to Episode 132 of Marie Haynes’ Search News You Can Use for the tip that Gary offered these insights on reddit. We promise moving forward to pay more attention to /r/TechSEO so we don’t miss any of the action!

Google Search Console International Targeting: Seems Easy (And Effective!).
Choosing An International Domain? It’s Complicated.

Making the choice to target international markets as part of your growth strategy is pretty easy. If you know your customers and want to reach similar people who speak another language or that live in another part of the world, there is no better course of action.

But before you get started with an international targeting SEO campaign, make sure you have the right combination of the following:

• Domain Extension
• hreflang Tag
• Geo-targeting

This will help position your site for the desired international targets. Below is a great chart from Moz’s Guide To International Website Expansion to help you make the right decision.

Checked out the graphic? Will your domain/hreflang/geotarget implementation result in the correct interpretation of the types of searchers you want to target?

Yes? Solid! Proceed with language and country international targeting for your domain in old Google Search Console. Well done!

No? Don’t do what you probably want to do, and delete your whole site from its server.

Instead, before you jump into international targeting in Search Console, maybe you need to take a second to reconsider your global domain(ation) strategy.

There are subtle but important differences in how website domains are interpreted for:

• global speakers of a language
• speakers of a specific language in a specific country
• natives of a country regardless of their preferred language.

Make sure you are on the right course before you dive too deep into international SEO.

For more on international SEO from our team of international digital marketing specialists, contact us or check out one of these posts:

• International SEO Tips To Conquer The SERPs And Emerge Victorious (Updated June 2019)
• How Online Marketing Helps Global Exporters Grow
• Our General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance Checklist

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

The post How To Set Up International Targeting In Google Search Console appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

You may be wondering if and to what extent you will be affected by this rollout. There are a few things website owners can do to determine whether their site is mobile-friendly, understand the extent of potential repercussions, and then prioritize any needed changes. Here’s our breakdown of the different ways to tell if your website will survive the continued roll-out of Google’s mobile-first index.

Steps to Analyze your Site’s Mobile Usability

The entire reason behind Google’s push for this change to search is because Google has been a pioneer in the realm of making the Internet a friendlier place for users on mobile devices. Mobile traffic doesn’t seem to be tapering off anytime soon, so site owners need to prepare for the worst if their site is not designed to satisfy mobile users in addition to traffic from desktops.

Many websites have already been acknowledging their need to be mobile-friendly, but some still have yet to catch up. When it comes to judging whether or not a website will be negatively impacted by the new mobile-first index, the most important place to start is by understanding a site’s relative mobile usability. These steps will go a long in way in helping you analyze your site:

1. Open your website on a mobile device

This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many barriers to customer conversion on mobile sites can be discovered by simply opening your phone and clicking around a bit.

2. Analyze mobile vs. desktop traffic

First things first — if you don’t have Google Analytics or another website analytics solution integrated with your site, you need to get that done ASAP. If you’re worried about what that involves or don’t feel equipped to do it yourself, let us know and we’d be pleased to talk with you to help figure out your options.  

If you already have traffic data at your disposal, then you’ll want to take note of what traffic to your website looks like. Desktop traffic from search that is significantly higher than mobile traffic from search can sometimes be a signal for issues with the mobile version of your site. Note: Latent independent variables can have strong effects in some verticals, so this does not always hold true. For example, you could see desktop conversions and acquisition metrics to be skewed toward mobile on B2C ecommerce sites where average order value is over $150.

You can dive slightly deeper by viewing organic search acquisition by device by following this path:

•        Analytics > Mobile > Overview  
•        Select Medium from the secondary dimension dropdown.

3. Test for responsive design

Test whether your website has a responsive design by opening your site in Google Chrome and pressing Control+Shift+J (Command+Option+J for Mac users) to bring up the Chrome Developer Tools console panel. Then click CTRL+SHIFT+M to toggle the device toolbar. You will see a toolbar appear at the top of your chrome window that looks like this:

This toolbar allows you to see your website as it would appear on various devices. You can also select responsive from the dropdown and enter a custom width and height.

4. Check mobile usability in Google Search Console

Open Google Search Console and go to the mobile usability section. Here you will see mobile usability errors that have been detected by Googlebot. What Google tells Search Console users:

“Websites with mobile usability issues may not rank as well in mobile search results.”

This is a very useful tool for testing whether a page on your website is mobile-friendly according to Google’s own metrics. You may also find it helpful to view Google’s developer documentation/guidelines for mobile site creation.

Barriers to Enhanced Mobile Usability

The following is a list of the most frequent errors that we find during the initial screening process for our new clients.

Rendering flash

This technology is rarely supported/leveraged by mobile browsers and should generally be avoided if possible. From an SEO perspective, this is an antiquated technology.

Small font size

We often see small font sizes in cases where sites have taken the time to define a default viewport width but have not implemented dynamic content scaling based on device size. Defining a viewport allows your website to define the outer limits of your page design. Without conveying this information through the meta viewport tag you are risking having content that displays off-screen.

Element padding

Some people have small phones and fat fingers! Keep these people in mind when designing your website and be sure to include adequate spacing between touch elements.

Fixed width viewport

One of the most important concepts for making a site mobile-friendly is responsive design. Users are going to access your website via a number of devices that will have varying screen sizes. When a site has correctly implemented responsive design, content will be dynamically scaled using a viewport width scale where necessary.

Off-screen content

It’s no secret that the dimensions of mobile device screens are smaller than desktop monitors. If your code does not account for this variation in screen pixel variability by using dynamic sizing, users may not be able to view some content because it is located outside of their viewport.

Subdomain configuration

While Google has declared it has no preference for mobile subdomains versus primary domains in the rankings, we have seen a large number of sites penalized for incorrectly implementing this method of mobile optimization. We recommend staying away from mobile subdomains where possible. In cases where there is no getting around a mobile subdomain for the mobile version of your site, it’s important to remember to:

1. Use the <link> tag with rel=”canonical” or rel=”alternate”
2. Detect user agent strings and redirect them correctly

Moving Forward with Mobile Users in Mind

Most Google searches are now being done through mobile devices and the future is looking like traffic from mobile devices will only continue to increase. According to internal statistics released on Google’s developer guide for mobile sites, 94% of smartphone users use their phones to search for local business information and 77% of all mobile searches are conducted during the workday.

The mobile version of your website continues to play an ever increasingly important role in your business growth. Following the steps outlined above should give you a good idea of the barriers that your users are encountering over mobile and the technical issues that Google sees when crawling your site.

Implementing fixes which can either help analyze or improve your site’s mobile usability may or may not be a challenge to you depending on your resources and technical knowledge. If you think you have the in-house technical capability to implement Google’s recommended changes, you should refer to the official mobile friendly best practices document and mobile SEO configuration guidelines. To ensure that these changes are necessary and will provide an ROI to your company, we suggest contacting a trusted digital marketing expert like DOM.

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

The post Here is How to Tell if Google’s New Mobile-First Index Will Crush You appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

In the SEO world, website migrations can be a stressful component of any campaign, and they are often carried out badly. The fact is that website migrations are necessary, such as when sites decide to make changes to their domain name or take on larger site design projects. Migrations can eventually lead to bigger benefits for organic search, technical and design implementations, and user experience.

No matter the specifics behind a website migration project, they don’t always have to be so scary. We’ll examine what defines a site migration, the negative impacts when done incorrectly, and some key considerations for websites before taking the dive.

What Is A Website Migration?

A website migration occurs when a website moves from one environment to another, or there’s a change in regards to a site’s domain name. In SEO terms, whenever a fundamental change happens to the URL structure of a site, the move is considered a migration. Website migrations fall into several general types.

Site Moves to a New CMS

Changing content management systems — also known as a CMS — is typically the most common migration type. A CMS is essentially a web application that sits on top of a database that stores all the information that you want on a website. WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are the most popular platforms for this.

Image via WebsiteSetup.org

The best reason for moving to a particular CMS is that without a CMS, custom-built, hard-coded websites are difficult to manage. They require a special skill set and knowledge to make even the most minor changes.

In some cases, websites will move from one CMS to another if the new CMS has a clear advantage or benefit.

Example: When first starting out, a small business owner may opt to have a custom site built by a freelance developer because it was a cheaper solution at the time. But as the company grows, moving to a common CMS like WordPress may be their best option when considering a redesign of their website.

If a site is only moving to a new CMS but keeping its current domain name, what appears to be a straightforward project can is deceivingly complex. For example, many older, custom-built websites have pages built with a ‘.html’ extension at the end of every URL:

https://www.example.com/services.html

If the above website migrates to a WordPress install, WordPress does not support .html extensions. By default, URLs will have the end portions removed to look something like this:

https://www.example.com/services

This change to URLs unleashes several issues, which we’ll cover later on.

Site Changes Domain Names

Whether it’s a company rebrand or a case where a stronger domain name is acquired, websites may choose to move to a new URL. If there is a change to at least one letter, number, character, or domain extension (eg. .com, .org, .net, etc.), this is a change which is applied to every page on a site.

Example: The website owner of example.com wants to rebrand his company and have his website moved to his newly acquired template.biz domain.

https://www.example.com —> https://www.template.biz

For this migration type, another example may include when one website is absorbed by another.

Example: The owner of example.com has a secondary company website which is too costly to maintain but still receives a good flow of organic traffic. He would want to set up the appropriate redirects to divert traffic from the lesser site to the main website to retain that traffic.

HTTP to HTTPS

Google has been hinting at how important it will be for all websites to have extra security via an HTTPS configuration. Many in the SEO world theorize that this is already becoming one of Google’s many search algorithm factors. Google will never confirm specifics of how organic search rankings are determined, but HTTPS encryptions will become the standard for all websites in the near future. To learn more about why making a move to HTTPS is a good idea, here’s one of our previous blog posts to help explain the benefits.

If you decide to move from HTTP to HTTPS, then the same considerations apply to your domain as the other migration types. The domain name remains the same but an SSL certificate becomes associated with the site, and it looks something like this:

http://www.example.com —> https://www.example.com

A Website Migration With A Little Bit of Everything

Of course, site migrations can include a combination of all the previously mentioned migration types. Migration projects will differ depending on the unique needs of a website. The important thing to remember is that if there is a universal change applied to all pages on a website, this is essentially a website migration.

You may be asking yourself, “Why does of any of this matter?”

Here’s a look at what could go wrong if a website migration is done poorly.

Minimize Your Risk And Maximize Your Success.
Download Our SEO Site Migration Checklist.

What Happens After a Poorly Executed Site Migration

Image Via Stockvault

There’s really one reason website owners should care about the success of a migration. Let’s consider what happens after the migration is completed without consideration for one of the biggest drivers of website traffic — organic search.

• Scenario: Leslie is the marketing manager for a medical supply manufacturer who has been coordinating a company rebrand and encrypting the entire website with HTTPS. After an intensive website redesign and coordinating multiple phases of the project, she neglects to consider a few items for SEO and launches the new site. Within a matter of weeks, her site’s single greatest source of traffic plummets at an alarming rate. A few more months go by, and organic traffic is a fraction of what it was before the launch.

The sad truth is that this is not just hypothetical — loss of organic traffic as a direct result of a site migration is a very real possibility for any website. With the right strategy, a significant loss in traffic from search is avoidable.

What’s happening is that when search engines like Google crawl the Internet, it’s index of websites serves as a sort of map and URLs are addresses on that map. Unless explicit instructions are given to Google, the search engine won’t know where to look if URLs have changed and may assume the site no longer exists.

For SEO to work at its most basic level, websites need to make it as easy as possible for search engines to crawl their site on a regular basis. Typically, site migration projects need a complex and well-thought-out approach to minimize unintended consequences.

But even beyond SEO, site migrations can also have a negative impact on the overall user experience from all traffic channels. Migrations have a knack for creating a mess of links across the site which takes a user to a broken 404 page. This link may have worked before the migration, but because every page URL changed and little was done for creating proper redirects, users will be the ones who suffer when trying to visit a URL that no longer exists.

Click here for a more in-depth analysis of how to preserve SEO performance and site traffic following a website redesign.

A Costly Clean-Up

For websites dealing with botched website migration, a lot has to happen to repair the damage and regain what was lost. This will often result in a time-consuming clean-up effort that will eat into resources that could be put into other avenues.

Making sense of what needs to be done from a clean-up perspective can be a monumental task in and of itself. Unless there is an in-house SEO specialist who has managed multiple site migration projects in the past, website owners will need to seek outside help.

Before The Website Migration, Think Hard

There’s a lot that can go wrong, but there are times where taking the plunge and going for a site migration just makes sense. Provided that SEO is always on the front of your mind before taking official action, site migrations are a good opportunity to generate press mentions for a rebrand, upgrade your site’s current look and function, and add more security via an SSL certificate.

Image via Pixabay

For websites of any size and in any vertical, these are the three most important considerations before planning a website migration.

1. Time for an upgrade?

Websites have several reasons for migration in the first place. At first, it may seem that a site only wants to undergo one specific type of migration, such as making a move from HTTP to HTTPS. Because a migration can be a massively complex project, this is a perfect opportunity to explore what else on a site can be upgraded or changed, as opposed to committing to multiple migration projects.

So for example, say a tech company decides to go to HTTPS because they value securing their customer and visitor data. Since a site migration project needs to happen, could this be a good time to move to a new CMS? Perhaps this is a perfect time to think about an overall rebranding and moving to one of their parked domain names? These are the kind of questions that are worth asking to see how much can be accomplished at the time of the pending site migration.

2. Evaluating existing resources

From small businesses to mammoth enterprises, the technical needs will depend on multiple factors. Websites are unique snowflakes, so it takes real thought to comprehend the scope and required resources for a site migration project.

You could have the most knowledgeable developers and digital marketing practitioners on the planet on your team, but SEO experience is often a specialized skill set many professionals don’t possess. Hiring an SEO professional or digital agency is entirely optional, but before even thinking that far ahead, you need to get a lay of the land first. Seeking consultation from someone experienced with migrations is the most important place to start.

3. Benchmark and record EVERYTHING

Having a thorough collection of all the data you can muster will be extremely important down the line. Before a website migration, here are the areas where you want to focus the most to gauge future success as well as planning out a migration strategy:

• Analytics & Google Search Console: Traffic & keyword benchmark data, top content
• New vs. old URLs
• External backlink profile data
• Protocols for internal links and redirects

Final Thoughts On Website Migration

Protecting a site’s SEO performance is possible and can save a lot of frustration when done correctly. Unfortunately, it is never a simple process, and many sites have to learn the hard way. Even in cases where a site migration went perfectly, site owners still need to consider how the migration will affect their backlinks and their overall link building strategy.

Image via Pixabay

But in the end, migrations are necessary and can lead to better things. If there’s one piece of advice to take away, it’s this:

Don’t do it alone, and talk to an expert before doing anything.

Smooth Your Transition To Your New Domain.
Learn How Our SEO Migration Services Help.

The post The Complete Beginner’s Guide To SEO Website Migrations appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Well, you are correct. They simply have re-branded the tool with a new name: Google Search Console.

No worries, if you already have a GWT account, you need not do a thing. Simply log in and you will notice the name change in the upper left hand corner. If you don’t have a free GWT, I mean Google Search Console account, what are you waiting for? GO GET ONE!

The reason behind this update is because Google knows that the tool is used by a wide variety of people and not just “webmasters”. I’m not a webmaster, however I love the tool and I use it every day as an SEO professional. GWT was launched initially with the purpose of simply being somewhere that webmasters could submit sitemaps; since then it has come a long way, including the recent overhaul which updated the Search Queries Report to Search Analytics.

In the end, the name change is not a big deal but knowing how Google works (or at least thinking that I do) I can’t help but think this is just the beginning of many changes to come! Change is good and I am excited to see what happens next.

Stay tuned for the next Get to Know Google and I promise to keep you updated on all things Google!

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Partner Agency before you reach out.

The post Get To Know Google: Say Goodbye to Google Webmaster Tools! appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.